Review/Test of 9A 3-Mode 5.5-12V Circuit board

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
6

Several people have used it with MT-G2. Some reports of overheating issues..

Current can easily be decreased (removing resistors like HKJ said), which probably makes it into one of the most compact 6,5A drivers for say an XM-L2 with the right resistor value.

Its also one of the few drivers that can output 3x3amps to XM-Ls from 2 cells in series without any driver modifications. And that is without any blinky modes, with decent mode spacing and with low voltage protection.

It may not be the best, but I think it deserves to be sold..

The driver (or basically the same driver) can be bought from LCK-LED, but its slightly more expensive than what intl-outdoor sold it for.

7

Nice review HKJ. Thanks for sharing your work with all of us. :slight_smile:

8

I have two of these, supposed to be the same, but one does 9A and the other only did 6.5A. The 9A one came with nine resistors - 3 on one side, and 6 on the other, double stacked. The 6.5A one only has 3 and 3.

(I changed the inductor-thing on the one on the left for space reasons, it didn't affect the output)

9

You are correct, they are stacked, mine has 9 resistors. If you look very careful on my photos, it can also be seen there.

10

Look at this 9 amp driver I found from KD, 14,79$... Not the same resistors though..

11

They look the same (R20 and R200 is the same).

12

Yupp! (and you are correct)

Its also sold as a 3A, 5A, and 7A version..

13

The 3A and 5A doesn't look like the same driver.

14

Yes, nine R200. I was wondering if the chip 5241a has been changed somehow. It should have 0.2V sense voltage. I = 0.2/R where R is 0.03333Ohm (9 times R200 in parallel). With 6 resistors R200 you would get 6A. I’ve seen 5241 chip in quite some bicycle lights including famous Magicshine.

So anyone who wants to mod it’s current can simply calculate it from the formula above.

15

whoops, my fault..

They are not the same, just very similar. Lower current and single mode.. And instead of wires between the boards, there is two metal rods..

16

Thermal image would be very nice for all driver tests.

17

The problem is that I cannot do it in my test setup, I will have to make another setup for that.

What you will get from a thermal image it not the temperatures (They are meaningless), but what components get hot.

18

TY :-)

19

Not quite true :slight_smile:

Im a certified thermographer and I can tell you within 1% what the temperature of a said component is easily, provided I take the image hehe

Chris

20

That is not the point. When taking thermal images, I would not have the same cooling as when mounted in a flashlight, i.e. the temperature will not be the same. That is the reason I call the temperature meaningless.

You have to know a bit about what you are measuring on and how it is used, when using the result from a thermal imager.

21

Ah I see :slight_smile:

Far from meaningless, but might be a translation issue

Chris

22

The hot parts are the mosfet & two diodes(?) on the top surface of the top board. In a light, those have to be in good contact with something substantial or else you get about 5-8 minutes runtime on high before it starts giving the overheat warning. Or, at least the version I have that runs at 9A does. It seems they are highly variable in the output they leave the factory with.

23

Thanks for the review! I was betting these things were not efficient and therefore creating a lot of heat. Looks like I will wait for another board to come out. Sooner or later someone is going to make a board just for the MT-G2.

24

This driver is the Only 9A 3 mode driver for 3x18650.
I used it for my FM3X UT with CBT-90 build, which is one of the few lights I kept. It’s not just big power, long throw, it also have the best beam and tint of all the lights I’ve ever built. It’s very rare to see solid core zero donut on big die.

Unfortunately, the driver just died, This is the 2nd time it happened, and I had copper heat sink made just for the driver. I am not trying it for the 3rd time, unfortunately, still no other 3 mode 9A driver out there.

25

Assuming that the CBT-90 can take rough treatment (high voltage spikes) you could probably consider the HX-1175b1. Driver Info: HX-1175b & HX-1175B1 (Pic Heavy) (EDIT: with a piggybacked ATtiny13A for 3-mode & etc)